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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Vatican
City, 19 November 2013 (VIS) – Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran,
president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, gave
an address at today's inaugural session of the King Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz Centre for Inter-religious and Inter-cultural Dialogue
(KAICIID). The centre is an independent organisation based in Vienna
and founded by Saudi Arabia, Austria and Spain, to which the Holy See
adheres in the role of Founding Observer.

The
Conference, which ends today, is intended to raise awareness among
younger generations to enable them to have an objective, honest and
accurate image of one another. From this perspective, three related
themes will be considered over the next three years. In 2013, the
theme “The Image of the Other” focuses on education, with the
presence in Vienna of a number of education ministers from all over
the world; next year's forum will be dedicated to means of
communication and finally, in 2015, the Internet will be the focus of
attention.

The
cardinal, in his English-language presentation, underlines that
“interreligious dialogue teaches us to be careful not to present
the religion of the other in a bad light in schools, universities,
the mass media and, in particular, in religious discourse; not to
demean the religious convictions of others, especially when they are
not present; and to consider diversity – ethical, cultural, vision
of the world – as a richness, not as a threat”.

He
continued, “What is at the centre of our concern is the human
person, man and woman. The human person is the object of the
attention of political and religious leaders. Each one of us is a
citizen and a believer. All of us belong to the same human family. It
means that we share the same dignity, we are confronted by the same
problems, we enjoy the same rights and we are called to accomplish
the same duties”.

He
concluded by repeating that one of the tasks of the KAICIID must be
the promotion of “'the intelligence of the heart', which inspires
us to respect what God is accomplishing in every human being and at
the same time to respect the mystery that every human person
represents. What we have to avoid absolutely is that religions
engender fear, attitudes of exclusion of or superiority in people”.
The Centre may therefore “become a place where we can … better
know each other and share all our abilities in order to make this
world more secure and enlightened, with all its inhabitants living in
a spirit of respect and friendship”.